Disclaimer: After reading a number of really offensive comments yesterday on the Kyron Horman disappearance, I was pretty visibly upset. This post was what came out. For my more, eh, religious friends, please take it with a large grain of salt – I was pretty worked up. you might skip to the last paragraph before you read it to understand where I was at the time. Thanks.
I am terrified.
I’m sitting in a bar, typing away on my “other” laptop, watching a bald, bearded basketball player on 3 televisions raising his sweaty palms in outrage over a questionable call from an indifferent referee. I’m sharing the room with small groups of people who seem to know each other, variously congregating at sticky wooden tables over lemon-flavored heffeweizens and 3-dollar appetizers, ads for chainsaws and a Cameron Diaz film most of us will refuse to admit we’ll eventually see, an underpaid middle-aged waitperson with Jennifer Aniston hair, straight teeth, and I’m guessing sore feet who is tending tables with a patented ironclad tip-me smile and a notepad, sweatshirts with Cruise for the Cure 2005 printed on the back next to mismatched sweatpants sharing company with fake gold earrings and untied Vans. All of it normal, and yet all I can muster is a sense of wonder at what the fuck is wrong with us.
In Portland, we the masses of indirectly-affected onlookers are currently sitting on the edge of our seats waiting to hear of the return of a child with an unusual name, Kyron, who disappeared mysteriously and abruptly from the safety of his school last week. This child is 7 years old, as innocent as anything that was ever imagined, smiling ear to ear in the photograph of him in front of his 2nd grade science project, in a photo where you can virtually see him bouncing from foot to foot in anticipation of the other children gazing upon the glorious work he has come up with, shortly before he vanished.
And yet, all I can seem to do is hide. I’m hiding from the unspeakable heartbreak that is gathering at the collective doorstep with each passing hour, and I can hardly bear the thought, because as much as we all know we cannot open the door and just let that spirit waft in, with each hour that passes we are increasingly fearful that we are not waiting so much for his safe return, as his discovery and identification. It’s a cold-hearted thing to say, and we all hope to God that it’s not true, but the horrible possibility is shrouding over all of us like the aching shadow of a building on the verge of collapse, or the look we imagine in our partner’s eyes when we have to choke out that we have a standing date with a doctor and his radiation machine.
So what kind of behavior does this bring out of all of us? People fall into predictable categories. Some unrelentingly positive and hopeful, others idiotic in their narcissistic theories, but most of us somewhere silently in between, posting notes on Facebook or checking in several times a day hoping the relief has been delivered through the gauntlet of spam filtration and unfeeling computerized categorizations. Is it better to be any of these things? Can anyone say whether we are right or wrong to speak or believe as we do about situations like this?
Some of us look for someone to blame. It must be the school’s fault with it’s lack of cameras, or it’s failure to autodial the parents earlier who could presumably have rushed to the scene and what – stopped it all from happening? Others concocting outrage over why it is that Amber’s all-powerful Alert can’t be sounded for this child; still others deduce in their infinite wisdom that the culprit must be the mother who expresses in grief and utter despair that she just wishes she could go to the gym and presumably forget it all, as if this horrible, unimaginable hole that has been ripped into her universe was never inflicted. Of course, thanks to Scott Peterson the parents are not allowed to express this tiny bit of a whisper of relief for fear that the community of nutcases and narcissistic self-proclaimed Law and Order conspiracy theorists will accuse them of the most heinous act possible.
Still others turn to their only sources of comfort, namely their current flavor of religion, casting desperate and heartfelt prayers, soon lighting candles and clinging to a childlike sense that if they just wish hard enough the sleeping giant in the sky will somehow shake off his seeming hibernation just this once, to sweep this precious lost creature up into His arms to be delivered safely, gently, into the strong hands of the ever vigilant and (by contrast) tirelessly unsleeping authorities. For me, a long time ago I started wondering why the great Absent One never seems to be around when the rapist strikes in broad daylight or the earthquake hits, another child’s parent raises their hand to their child, or the oceans turn to corporate bloody death, or the pregnant mother dies of complications and “not what Jesus would do” insurance coverage. And I think horrible thoughts, like “As if ending your goddamn Facebook prayer with “In His name we pray!!!” will make a fucking difference to the great in-His-image-we-are-wrought uncaring and disinterested power in the sky.” In this world we’ve made with the plans He vaguely outlined in a handful of disjointed books, argumentative follow-up theories on what he meant in the first place, and a tradition of blood-lusted religious nutcases dominating man to his injury, apparently nobody prays hard enough to get His attention. Apparently our narcoleptic God needs another angel. As if he didn’t have enough already.
Yeah me and God, we don’t talk much lately.
As for the rest of us, the mass of people that are somewhere between making excuses for every time God fails to pay attention, the “everything happens for a reason” flawed philosophical bar of soap on a rope, and trying to figure out what life alternatives are left, we sit, and we wait. We rack our brains trying to think of what could have happened or where he could be, but holding our thoughts in check out of respect for those who might be reading. We quietly wonder in terror, hoping we’re wrong, hoping somebody checks their toolshed just one more time and finds little Kyron tinkering with the lawnmower and eating a Crunch bar, hoping that this was all just some big misunderstanding and he’s actually floating through the sky in a giant peach or comfortable basket with a talking turtle, drifting under a latex weather balloon to get out of the weather for a change. It’s too hard to face the alternative. It consumes you, and keeps you up in the dark hours; it eats at your esophagus as you look in on your own sleeping angel faces, desperate to protect them, desperate to keep them within your arms, desperate to keep the unseen demons lurking just beyond the school doors at bay, desperate to just breath in, and breath out, which you know in the end is all you can really do.
You could say a prayer. It couldn’t hurt. You could pass out a flyer or two, or change your Facebook image to Kyron’s image and write unapologetic comments and blog posts describing your theories, or blog posts like this one berating the narcissists with their goddamn deductions. Or donate money. You can take this as an opportunity to talk to your own kids about safety, explaining how God might not care much for other kids, but he sure as hell cares enough for our family to never let that happen to us. Whatever you do, you do. And that has to be good enough, because you’ve got nothing else, and I’ve got nothing else. We’ve got nothing else but an ounce of hope, and holding our breath, and sucking it up, and wishing to God that this never happened, and in futility that everything could have a neat and tidy answer like so many logical spam filters and email folders.
But it rarely is that tidy. It is usually far more like a messy call from the seemingly indifferent referee administering fairness, who may or may not be biased, or bought off, who makes a call that makes no sense to the offended team, a call about which there is nothing you can do. At least the referee has the decency to show up when the victims raise their hands to him in disbelief and ask, “Why?”
To cope, some of us look at our precious children and keep our eyes fixed on them intently as if our gaze will keep them safe, with our throats shoved up somewhere below the backs of our eyelids, keeping the utter terror and sadness a safe-feeling distance away from our easily penetrable hearts. Some of us explain it away with theories and prayers, or conspiracy theories and blame.
And some of us go to the bar with our electronic devices, wearing our good shirt, watching a game we’re not interested in, ordering the half-off appetizers and specialty beer on tap, hiding behind a coward’s keyboard lashing out at God and everyone else, but really just in terror that such a thing as this could happen to us. God forbid.
{ 9 comments }
Thank you. You captured many of my own emotions as well.
After reading this, all I can think is how blessed you are to live in such a sheltered world, that you wander through life with so little fear. White, male, middle-class, that’s why. Inferring the economic status by the fact you have a laptop and an “other” laptop.
Do you want to know what my second thought is every time I hear Kyron’s name? It’s “What child has gone missing who isn’t getting this attention because they’re not cute, they’re 14 instead of 7, they’re not white?”
I’m a woman of color, which means I’ve got two strikes against me immediately in this society. I read books like “No Safe Place” in college and discovered I wasn’t the only one who’d been beaten by a high school boyfriend as he told me he loved me, I wasn’t the only one who did not feel safe behind locked doors in her own home. I wasn’t the only one who looked at the clothes she was putting on before she left the house and thought, “Is there anything I’m wearing that would make me a target today?” and know that no matter what I wore, if someone decided that they wanted to do violence against me, they would.
And now, you’re feeling lost and adrift. Sorry. Having trouble mustering sympathy. Welcome to my world. I live here every day, you’re on the tourist visa. I’d give you a suggestion about how I came to be able to put one foot in front of the other, how I got the strength to walk out that door every day, and how I found the words to tell the man on the bus to stop petting my hair, and all the other women’s hair, loud enough for everyone to hear but no one had said anything before. I’d tell you how I manage it, but you’ve already dismissed it. Without knowing me. Without knowing the walk I’ve taken to get to my faith, the long and treacherous road, one I’m still stepping out on every single day.
Because the first thought I have when I read another something about Kyron is “Blessed is the name of the Lord, who keeps all the children in the palm of his hand.”
In the end, these sorts of events are always seen through our own personal prisms of experiences, both good and bad.
I pray for Kyron and his family, while recognizing that bad shit happens.
Sometimes for no apparent reason.
Mary Sue-
This post isn’t about you.
Do you know Metroknow and his experiences? Why do you assume that he dismisses yours? Because he owns a laptop and drinks hefewizen?
Your words serve to separate. Is that what you want?
At least your loved ones know where you are tonight. That’s more than can be said for Kyron’s.
Metroknow,
This disappearance has been so hard on all of us. And it’s deeply difficult to connect to any divine caretaker of our world when we are worrying about a little guy who had a cat named Bootsie that followed him to his bus stop.
As humans, we can’t know, completely the good that has come out of this situation. We can’t understand how many people really saw their kids and hugged them. We can’t know how many schools are now safer. We can’t know how people changed for the better, towards one another, because one boy went missing.
It’s easier to measure the bad. The fear. The anger. Kyron’s suffering. His family’s suffering.
We don’t know the whole story, the entirety of the experience, good and bad. We can’t.
Maybe God can. Maybe. I vacillate between thinking that there’s going to be a happy ending, and wondering if this is the problem with free will, with chaos. Maybe God can’t intercede when man puts things in motion.
Mostly, I just pray and hope that Kyron makes it home, tonight.
I think Mary Sue has a point about one thing:
http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PubCaseSearchServlet?act=usMapSearch&missState=OR&searchLang=en_US
Anyone recognize more than one name on this list?
@Brewcaster – although I didn’t quantify that list by Mary Sue’s categorizations of “cute” and “14 instead of 7″, this is the breakdown along racial lines that I see:
Biracial: 6
Hispanic: 8
Black: 1
Asian: 2
White: 25
I cannot say why some kids capture public attention and others do not; I think in this case the drama of a child disappearing from a public school touches a lot of buttons with parents who provide complete trust that the school is a safe haven; from that list, it doesn’t seem that it is strictly a racially-driven thing that Kyron’s case has received media attention and others have not. BUT, I could totally be wrong on my assumptions – my little assessment is far from scientific, or the complete picture in any way.
Thanks for the link – certainly is a lot of food for thought.
@Mary Sue – I will not engage in your oneupmanship of how hard (or easy) my life was relative to anyone else’s – With all sincerity, I am sure you had a much more difficult road than I for the reasons you state.
But, your assumptions about me based on my perceived skin color, my “other laptop”, my gender, and your imaginations of my resulting background are both unfair and incorrect. For what it’s worth I put myself through college working two manual labor jobs alongside hardworking folks of all different ethnicities, getting paid the same (believe me, we talked about it), and managed by a Latino manager in a small, woman-owned factory. I myself am half Asian although my skin color is in fact white, a detail for which my father was disappointed having married a full-blooded Asian woman. I did spend part of my time growing up in some typical mostly-white suburbs; by contrast I also spent a good portion of my life both as a child and an adult living as a very unpopular white minority in third-world areas of the world doing volunteer work alongside my family. It clearly does not compare to your life experience, but FWIW I have some idea of what it means to be a target, particularly with white folks being picked off at random during turbulent political times in those areas. Oh and BTW, I do not believe it was “white privilege” that afforded us the opportunity to volunteer. It was a willingness of my parents and my larger family to throw themselves wholeheartedly into something they believed in, particularly since me and my two sisters were pretty much the only white kids in my extended family.
All I will say is I offer to you my genuine respect for both your past and what you face daily, and how you deal with it with strength, courage, and dignity. My path diverged from one of devout faith not so long ago, and I’m now trying to figure out what that means. Your quote sounds like it is from the book of Matthew or Mark, though I am not certain (and I apologize if I am way off the mark there), but it sounds like something I’ve read many, many times, and have shared personally many, many times in an effort to bring comfort to folks. I have just reached a point in my life where I am unsure of what it means for me.
On the piece in general, my fear in the moment has much more to do with the fact that for the first time in my life I am a father of two children. Stories like Kyron’s scare me not just a little as such, particularly with a wavering sense of whether there is a power out there working the rigging of the world, and a sense of powerlessness to protect my kids from situations like these. Again, it’s my path, and it unfolds every day in ways I do not anticipate.
At any rate, I wish you well.
Good on Mary Sue for speaking her mind.
Who knows what the right thing to say is? Who knows what the right thing to do is? My heart breaks for the family of Kyron Horman, as well for Kyron himself. After going through a horrendous tragedy myself I can honestly say; “there is not ONE of us that can even imagine the horror and pain this family is going through, because Kyron belongs to them”. Sure we can say we understand, but we cannot truly feel the depth of their pain. We are not the loved ones of this little boy. We can only ‘imagine’ their pain and do whatever it takes in a positive manner to help bring Kyron home. Like Mary Sue said, download the missing Kyron flyer and pass them out to as many people as you can, but whatever you do keep it positive. Remember only Kyon’s loved ones can truly, truly understand the deep raw pain of grief they are experiencing. People say, ‘oh I understand your pain’…’no’ I am sorry ‘you don’t', ‘you cannot’. Hug your children close to you, hold your own candle light vigils, do whatever you can to get the word to every person you know that Kyron’s family needs our support. Stop speculating or blaming … it is not your place to do so. If you believe in the power of prayer, pray like you have never prayed before for Kyron and for his family. Regardless of the outcome their lives have changed forever. You can never be the same person you were before…that much I do know. There is only one thing Kyron’s family needs from all of us and that is our deep, deep caring and support. You are not walking in their shoes, therefore you are in no position to blame.
Respectfully, Kathy Young-Loggins
CORRECTION: I used the name Mary Sue in my recent writing…I apologize … the name I wanted was from the person who said, something like this; ‘zip it’. There were pieces of her article I so much agreed with and others were simply her opinion…just like all of us have our own opinion. Now, regarding Mary Sue … I agree with the person who said, ‘Mary Sue this is not about ‘you’.
I say; Keep the story alive in the media…I know from experience how much that can help. DO NOT let this story go by the wayside until Kyron is found and PLEASE do not make it about you!
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